Connect with Kenyan history

Rabai

By Maina Kiarie

Rabai is situated about 25km north-west of Mombasa, off the Nairobi-Mombasa highway on Mazeras-Kaloleni road. Rabai, also called Rabai Mpya, is a historic location in Kilifi district as it is the first place where missionaries of the Church Missionary Society established a Christian mission.

The Rabai museum was opened as a site museum in June 1998 in the building that was originally the church built by the CMS missionaries, Dr Ludwig Kraff and Johann Rebmann, between 1846 and 1848 at Rabai mission station.

Rabai is well known in the annals of history as the place where Christianity and modern learning in Kenya started well over 150 years ago. The museum is intended to give a formal reminder to monumental events during the advent of the early missionaries. The museum founded in memory of Krapf and his work in the area has some of Krapf’s original documents, books and maps as well as the house he and Rebmann built there.

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